


After

by sue_dreams (raegan_1)



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M, ghost story, no one dies who isn't already dead!, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raegan_1/pseuds/sue_dreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a ghost in Smallville, but even death can't stop Destiny. A tale of the afterlife (and the beginning of life after).</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

**Author's Note:**

> AU. **Major character death** , but not an unhappy fic. (and no one dies who isn't dead before the start of the story)

"It's not that this is the first time I've seen through someone," Clark said, driven to honesty by way of surprise and a certain level of disbelief.

The transparent figure leaned back against the edge of the desk and while his lips didn't move, Clark could almost hear a voice saying, "Tell me about it."

Which, given the presence of the ghost, a disembodied voice shouldn't be able to faze Clark. Still, he found himself looking around for another person, a more solid entity. "There's not really a lot to tell," Clark said aloud. To the voice _in his head_ , he realized with a wince.

The ghost smirked and continued to stare at Clark, who tried to focus on features of his face, but traced the lines in the wall behind him instead. Unlike most of the strange things Clark came across in Smallville, the ghost seemed more interested in Clark than in hurting him or asking for his help. When the outline of a hand waved Clark into one of the chairs in front of the desk, he sat.

* * *

"There's not much more to say," Chloe said impatiently. As if in spite of herself, she sat back in the chair and recounted the same details again anyway, sounding out words as if thinking aloud would make one of the theories more probable. "And while Luthor was quick to pull not just a son but a daughter out of hiding, he also never looked happy to have lost his heir. I wouldn't have believed his grief, but his anger at the loss seemed real enough."

Clark looked through the pages she'd given him, copies of old articles on Alexander Luthor, the castle in the corn, and the disappearance of the first that had led to his presence at the latter. Other than one mention about taking over the plant, an event that never happened thanks to his disappearance, Clark could find no record of Alexander in Smallville past the 1989 meteor shower.

Chloe's chair creaked as she leaned across the desk toward Clark. "Are you going to tell me now why you wanted to know?"

* * *

"He called us the Four Musketeers," Chloe said, voice carrying from the distant library. Clark was already smiling by the time Pete's walkie talkie relayed the message.

Pete's response was for Clark's ears alone. "Man, that is just too weird."

"Weirder than anything else that happens in Smallville?" Clark said, scanning through the rough stone floor of the cellar. After he'd let Chloe drag the whole story out of him twice, once for her and then once again for Pete and Lana, they'd done some research on hauntings. Lex didn't fit any pattern of behavior on ghosts they'd seen, but he wasn't a figment of Clark's imagination either. Ghost hunting might have been different than their norm, it wasn't too far off from shape shifters and invisible people.

Though 'hunting' had quickly turned into... he wasn't sure what to call it. 'Hanging out' seemed to weird to apply, but they'd spent more than one weekend, not to mention afternoons after school, 'talking' to Lex for it to be anything else.

"Not really," Pete agreed, sweeping his flashlight into the dark corners of the room. "Do you think he's really dead? He could be like that girl in the movie where he's actually in a coma."

"Doesn't explain why he's stuck in a house he'd never been inside of," Clark said, though he wasn't actually dismissing the idea altogether. Alive or dead, his body had to be somewhere and it wasn't any more absurd to imagine the castle having a room with machines and an IV keeping Lex alive. Though if that were the case, he probably would have stumbled upon it during his haunting.

Pete made a sound that could have meant anything. "He's pretty nice for a dead guy," he finally said.

That drew Clark's attention away from the ground. "I thought you hated him because of his dad."

"I was going to. But he's the nicest ghost I've ever heard of and since it's probably his last name that got him killed, he's been punished enough for his birth." Clark continued to stare until Pete looked up, then shifted uncomfortably when he realized he was under scrutiny. He shrugged. "Lana and I were talking about it."

"Oh," Clark said. He returned to the search, careful of the narrow doorway into the next room.

"Clark," Lana said, the sound reaching his ears without benefit of the walkie-talkie. "He's getting agitated and he's mouthing your name. Where are you guys?" He paused and stretched his hearing deeper to pick up not only her voice, but the brush of her shoes on carpet.

There was an agitated click as Chloe pressed on the 'talk' button of the walkie-talkie and echoed the question. "Pete, where are you guys?"

He looked back at Pete, but there was no static and no echo on the radio he carried. "Did your batteries die?" he asked Pete.

Pete frowned and checked, but there was the battery light and the faint his of static as he release the button. "Why, what's up?"

"I don't know," Clark said. Now that his vision was back to normal, he scanned the room they were in. It was solid rock, just like the rest of the cellar, though the air felt a little cold-

He jerked back from Lex's hand, surprised by the ghost's sudden presence. Lex was frowning, the lines of his body sharp and still as he looked at Clark. When he seemed satisfied that he had Clark's attention, he looked down at the floor.

With a sudden, sickening lurch, Clark thought of the phrase, "Someone standing on my grave." Lex's expression softened, but was sad. This time when he reached out to Clark, Clark held still and let the brief touch of cold offer what comfort it could.

* * *

The bones were entombed in the concrete floor. Someone had taken great care to make it look similar to the rest of the flooring in the cellar, but once Clark identified the shape of a body just an inch down, they all agreed that they could see the difference.

"According to the Winchester books, we need to salt and burn the remains," Chloe said.

"Maybe just some holy water and a prayer?" Lana suggested from across from her. Somehow, they'd each ended up sitting around the center of the floor in a loose rectangle, a living person making up each side. Lex sat next to Clark on his side of the box, sprawled in a loose approximation of everyone else's cross-legged position.

It was Pete who suggested it, just as Clark was opening his mouth. "Why do anything?"

They all looked at him in surprise, except Clark, who looked at Lex, and Lex, who looked... intrigued. Curious. His head was tilted at that angle that said, "Tell me more," and Clark bit back a smile.

"He's not hurting anyone and, Lex, you said yourself you've been entertaining yourself, right? So why disturb his body?" Pete shrugged, but met their gazes separately, squarely.

"Except he's trapped here," Lana pointed out. "And we'll only be able to visit until someone finds out we're sneaking in."

Chloe looked thoughtful. "According to the Winchester Gospel - and shut it, guys, it's no weirder a thing to believe in than aliens - ghosts can imprint on objects. Something relevant to the individual. Making it portable," she explained further, tone lapsing into exasperation.

When Lex disappeared, there was a pause and an influx of warm air. They looked at each other, then scrambled to their feet. "Study," Clark said, then did his version of a disappearing act as he ran to the floor above. It'd take his friends a few minutes to catch up, but if Lex was somewhere else, it'd end up saving them time.

Except Lex was where Clark had thought he would be, the same room he'd been in when Clark had found him first, and second, and each other time he'd come to the castle since that first time. "Hey, Lex," he said, coming to a stop beside the ghost.

Lex tilted his head and graced Clark with a smile, then looked back down at the ornate box on his desk.

"I'm sorry," Clark said in a rush, which got him another glance. "I didn't think we would, but... I hoped we'd find you." Not his remains.

Lex nodded and that not-voice brushed against Clark's senses in understanding, forgiveness, regret, comfort. It finished with amusement, "If this works, you can show me your Fortress."

"My parents will freak." Clark smiled and reached for the box, hand hovering over the cold impression of Lex's before sliding through it and raising the lid. "They'll understand, though." Maybe. His parents were pretty good about accepting unusual strays. What was a friendly ghost, after an alien and a telepath?

There wasn't enough light for the watch to glint, but it did so anyway.

* * *

A speedster thief, one Lois Lane, and a lost, but living, billionaire vigilante later, Clark's parents didn't bat an eye when he brought up the subject of clones. Martha only said it'd finally give her a chance to feed Lex as she'd been wanting to do for years.

Clark could sympathize. There were a lot of things he'd been waiting for years to be able to do.  



End file.
